Dr Emma Hughes is an Associate Professor in the People, Work and Employment Department at Leeds University Business School. She is a member of the Centre for Employment Relations Innovation and Change and the Digital Futures of Work Research Centre (DIGIT).
Before joining Leeds University Business School in January 2023, Dr Hughes was a lecturer at the University of Liverpool Management School and became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has also worked as a research assistant for Alliance Manchester Business School on a Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development commissioned project.
Externally, Dr Hughes serves as Associate Editor for Employee Relations: The International Journal and Gender, Work and Organization. She is an editorial board member for Work, Employment and Society and the Journal of Management Studies. Her work has been published in various academic journals and wider media outlets such as The Conversation and HR Magazine. Dr Hughes is also a committee member of the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) and a member of the Economic and Social Research Council peer review college.
While at the University of Cambridge, Dr Hughes will conduct research on the four-day working week. Her research interests include working time reduction and the impact of arrangements such as the four-day working week on organisations, employees, and specific employee groups.
Dr Hughes's research considers how workplace policies and practices influence and are influenced by individuals, organizations and wider external factors. My research interests broadly include:
Dr Hughes has experience working on externally funded projects. In 2022, she was awarded the CIPD Professor Mick Marchington Applied Research Grant to investigate the experiences of front-line managers in implementing people management. This project focused on how advancements in digital technologies affect the role of line managers and the workers they oversee, concluding in February 2024. In October 2022, she became a co-investigator on a three-year ESRC-funded project examining online retail warehouse work.
Hughes E, Donnelly R. 2024. Theorising the impact of macroturbulence on work and HRM: COVID‐19 and the abrupt shift to enforced homeworking. Human Resource Management Journal. 386-402 34.2
Hughes E, Dundon T. 2023. Addressing Big Societal Challenges in HRM Research: A Society–Actors–Processes–Policy Framework. Academy of Management Perspectives. 91-116 37.2
Donnelly R, Hughes E. 2023. The HR ecosystem framework: Examining strategic HRM tensions in knowledge-intensive organizations with boundary-crossing professionals. Human Resource Management. 79-95 62.1
Hughes E, Dobbins T, Merkl-Davies D. 2022. Moral economy, solidarity and labour process struggle in Irish public transport. Economic and Industrial Democracy. 146-167 43.1
Nechanska E, Hughes E, Dundon T. 2020. Towards an integration of employee voice and silence. Human Resource Management Review. 100674-100674 30.1